Man Guilty In Shooting, Wounding Woman

Back=porch Incident Escalated Quickly

NEWPORT NEWS — The quiet of a sunny spring afternoon in Elonda Burrell's East End neighborhood was first broken by the sound of men arguing on her back porch.

Minutes later the March 23 afternoon quiet was shattered by gunfire. One of the shots wounded Burrell.

Wednesday, Kareem Malcolm was found guilty of firing that shot.

A Newport News Circuit Court jury returned guilty verdicts on all three counts against Malcolm, 18: malicious wounding, shooting into an occupied dwelling, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The same jury handed Malcolm a sentence totaling 18 years in the state penitentiary.

Witnesses testified that on the day of the shooting, Malcolm had walked up to Burrell's back porch and begun jawing with several men hanging out there. Burrell didn't want trouble. ``What's your name?'' she demanded. ``You don't need to know,'' he shot back.

``OK, Mr. No-name, take your mess somewhere else,'' she said.

Malcolm backed away. But moments later, others saw him draw a handgun and begin firing at the porch. One of the bullets struck Burrell in the right breast.

Malcolm swore that he didn't fire the shot. After he'd backed away, he said, someone fired two shots at him from the house. He then pulled out his own gun and fired, he said, but he squeezed off two shots at the ground, not at Burrell.

Newport News police investigator Cmdr. Richard Martin had testified that although he'd found seven .380-caliber shell casings near the back porch and five 9mm shells near the sidewalk on the 35th Street side, he hadn't found a single mark on or inside the townhouse. The number of shots heard by witnesses ranged from four to eight to ``a lot.''

Malcolm told a police investigator that he'd been shot at the previous night. The argument at Burrell's home began when he spotted two men he thought may have been involved in that shooting on her porch while walking to the store the next day, he said.

And he testified he didn't fire any shots in Burrell's direction, but was firing only in reaction to hearing shots, which began after Burrell's nephew, Rodney White, came to the back door. Malcolm also said that after hearing a second set of shots, he turned to see a man named Donald Moore wielding a handgun behind him.

But four prosecution witnesses told a different story. James Adams, Burrell's fiancee, was inside the house. He heard one of the men on the porch say, ``It wasn't me, it wasn't me.'' And when White went to the back door, Adams heard Malcolm tell him to come outside, ``I'll shoot you, too.''

White said he saw Malcolm pull out the gun. ``After he pulled it out, I got away from the door,'' he said. ``Then I heard shots.''

Burrell neighbor Dianne Richardson also saw Malcolm fire the shots. ``I was looking right at him,'' she said.

After the shooting, police found Malcolm a few blocks away, hiding under a pile of clothes in the closet of a house.